Among image forming apparatuses such as laser beam printers, there are those to and from which a developing unit having an element (memory) can be attached and detached, and in which a latent image formed on a photoconductor provided in a photoconductor unit is printed in full color by rotating the attached developing unit using a rotating device such as a rotary.
To read and write various types of information to and from the element (memory) of the developing unit and the element (memory) of the photoconductor unit, communication is carried out wirelessly between these elements (memories) and the main image forming apparatus.
It is necessary to provide an antenna on the main image forming apparatus side in order to perform wireless communication with the elements. At this time, it is inefficient to provide separate antennas for wirelessly communicating with the element (memory) of the developing unit and for wirelessly communicating with the element (memory) of the photoconductor unit.
Also, it is preferable that communication between the elements (memories) of developing units and the main image forming apparatus is possible at a plurality of rotation angles of the rotating device. However, when an antenna capable of this is provided on the main image forming apparatus side, there is the problem that the antenna must be large.
It is an object of the present invention to achieve image forming apparatuses and computer systems that have efficient communication systems.
It is a further object of the present invention to achieve image forming apparatuses, developing units, and computer systems that allow the size of the antenna for wirelessly communicating with an element of a developing unit to be made small.